Abstract
Shape is a key characteristic to determine the quality of outgoing flat-rolled products in the steel industry. It is greatly influenced by flatness, a feature to describe how the surface of a rolled product approaches a plane. Flatness is of the utmost importance in steelmaking, since it is used by most downstream processes and customers for the acceptance or rejection of rolled products. Flatness sensors compute flatness measurements based on comparing the length of several longitudinal fibers of the surface of the product under inspection. Two main different approaches are commonly used. On the one hand, most mechanical sensors measure the tensile stress across the width of the rolled product, while manufacturing and estimating the fiber lengths from this stress. On the other hand, optical sensors measure the length of the fibers by means of light patterns projected onto the product surface. In this paper, we review the techniques and the main sensors used in the steelmaking industry to measure and quantify flatness defects in steel plates, sheets and strips. Most of these techniques and sensors can be used in other industries involving rolling mills or continuous production lines, such as aluminum, copper and paper, to name a few. Encompassed in the special issue, State-of-the-Art Sensors Technology in Spain 2013, this paper also reviews the most important flatness sensors designed and developed for the steelmaking industry in Spain.
Highlights
In the steelmaking industry, shape is a key characteristic to determine the quality of outgoing products of rolling mills and downstream manufacturing lines
Contact flatness sensors are designed to compute the length of longitudinal fibers of rolled products based on the strength across their width when they move forward along the rolling mill or the production line
The second research group at the University of Oviedo involved in this partnership and working on research tasks related with the automation of flatness measurement in the steelmaking industry is with the Department of Electrical, Electronic, Computer and System Engineering (EECS)
Summary
Shape is a key characteristic to determine the quality of outgoing products of rolling mills and downstream manufacturing lines. These are three major flatness defects that may appear when residual stress distribution is homogeneous across the product thickness and heterogeneous across the product width, mainly in symmetric rolling. Flatness measurements of a rolled product in the steelmaking industry can be computed based on length measurements taken over several longitudinal sections of the product. Symmetrical flatness measurements can be used to describe flatness defects caused by bending irregularities in the rolling stand and can be computed as shown in Equation (3), where F1+n−c is the symmetrical flatness and L1 , Lc and Ln are the length of the fiber at one side, at the center and at the other side of the product, respectively. Flatness measurements taken in two different locations of the steelmaking plant may vary, and such correlation could be very hard to find
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